Outside the Tribeca Performing Arts Center in Lower Manhattan, it was a chilly November evening. But inside the auditorium, things were heating up quickly as the 13-member Spanish Harlem Orchestra (SHO) took the stage. From the first few bars of “Latinos Unidos,” the orchestra’s theme song, many in the audience—a highly integrated mix of Latinos, Anglos, African Americans and Asians—were dancing in their seats.
Read MoreNYC's Spanish Harlem Orchestra transforms Seattle's Jazz Alley into salsa party
By Carol Banks Weber, AXS
After the sixth song, Spanish Harlem Orchestra bandleader Oscar Hernandez exclaimed jubilantly to the audience: “We took it somewhere else.” The 13-member, all-star salsa dura band from New York City definitely did in its 10-song, one-and-a-half-hour opening night set at Seattle’s Jazz Alley last Thursday.
Every song the Grammy-winning band performed — mostly from the new, self-titled album — even the one or two ballads, exploded with high energy, passion, and excruciatingly tight, polyrhythmic syncopation that every audience felt in the feet.